This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will develop a power generation device capable of converting waste heat into electricity with much lower cost/watt than existing devices. This work is accomplished by bringing together principles of physics and materials science in practical wafer scale semiconductor manufacturing, enabling new, low cost products.
The thermoelectric power generation devices to be developed in this work are key to realizing the often touted but yet unrealized societal benefits of thermoelectric power generation. Examples of benefits that can be forseen in the initial target market, the transportation industry, are economic benefits for the public from reduced fuel consumption and reduced environmental impact due to more efficient operation.
Romny Scientific, Inc. has developed high performance thermoelectric materials that exhibit unmatched performance / cost as part of this NSF funded effort. These materials have been successfully integrated into power generation modules. The novel power generation module architecture allows for high performance at low manufacturing costs. Thermoelectric materials are often evaluated by their thermoelectric figure of merit, known as zT. However, in developing a product for mass market energy efficiency applications, developing a material that has a high zT is not as important as developing a material with a high zT per cost. Cost must include raw material cost as well as material synthesis cost at volume. That philosophy drove this research and has yielded scalable, low cost materials with excellent performance measured by their zT. Likewise, in order for a thermoelectric material to be integrated into a power generation module that can reach broad commercial markets, the module architecture must be produced at low cost and provide high reliability. Romny's technology enables customers such as automakers and truck manufactures to integrate these thermoelectric modules into their products and improve fuel efficiently. Likewise, industrial customers such as chemical plants, metal refiners and smelters can likewise use their waste heat to produce useful electrical power from these material and modules. This material and module technology has been key to Romny earning notable revenue and a list of prominent customers and potential customers.
